(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 March 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 10.39.39)
It is interesting how ultimately the guru is an individual. We are totally dependent on our spiritual master. Yes, we have our relationship with Krsna but if our guru is not pleased with us then Krsna does not want to know us, as simple as that! You can go to Krsna and say (with an Australian accent), “Hey Krsna, hey… how ya going?” and He is sort of cold and not reciprocating. That is basically what happens.
It is our process that one must take shelter of a vaisnava and we see that in the spiritual world – everyone is the servant of someone else; that is the only way one can please Krsna, gopī-bhartur pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsa dāsanudāsah (Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya 13.80)
Sometimes, I have brought up the point that we have to please the spiritual master. Somehow or other; by an act of fate, by the mercy of my spiritual master and Krsna; I became a spiritual master. Then I started looking at things from the other side. The disciple has to please the spiritual master and now, I am the one that has to be pleased. So does it mean that I have to be really pleased or does it mean that when a certain standard of a reasonable level of surrender in devotional service is reached then the spiritual master is pleased?
No, I guess, it means that I have to be really pleased. Well, I am hard to please! I always was. I am not easily pleased. I am sort of quite a demanding personality actually, to speak the truth, “It is nice, you know, but…”